Well, this is a surprise – not. Trying to get online on your PS3 or Vita? PSN is down. Again. Trying to sign in nets you an error code “80028EA1.” If you were connected to the PlayStation Network before it went down, perhaps downloading something, your download is still ongoing. If you weren’t, you won’t be getting online to enjoy the company of other gamers, shop the PlayStation Store or any other activity.
On the plus side, Sony is aware that the PSN is down. It’s issued a statement on Twitter saying it has technicians looking into the problem and that statements are forthcoming concerning updates. It also says the problem is only affecting some people. We have a “your mileage may vary” situation on our hands. Hopefully the network will be back to normal soon so everyone can enjoy it.

In the meantime, bookmark the Is the PSN down? website. People report there on updates and it’s a great community resource to determine if the PlayStation Network is back again or not. Right now, the answer is “not,” but maybe that will change in a few hours or minutes.

All said, this has not been a good couple of weeks for Sony. There have been a number of PSN outages over the past few weeks, with the last one being on March 15, 2013. It’s not a good situation. Especially since God of War: Ascension was just released and has a much hyped online multiplayer. Having the network down and out when people are really excited about a new game sucks. Then again, it does have a pretty robust single player mode and plenty of other PS3 games have been released over the past few days, so people should have something to keep them busy until this inconvenience passes.

I have a feeling this outage will end soon. PS3 firmware 4.40 was released today. It could be there’s some hitch involving it, and that’s causing the PSN to go down for some people.

Update: The PlayStation Network is back for everyone. If you’ve got a PS3, download your new firmware update and get back to loving your games!